UNDERSTANDING LAW SCHOOL

     Before invading law school I had snapshots of memories prior to the realization that soon enough I'll be facing deadly encounters. A month before enrollment, I browsed over my friendster since it was for ages that I had last opened my account. Suddenly, my senior political science "ate" who was also taking up law sent me a comment saying that "Mitchie you're taking up law? Think about it. Are you really sure?". I was a bit shocked and my mind went sporadic as the word "SURE KA!3X?" kept on flashing & popping out of my braincells. Indeed, was I really sure enough to proceed on the so-called deadly life of a law student? Hahaha.. I would have taken my senior's comment as an insult for not believing in my capabilities but it was also more of a warning, a thorough consideration or rather a wake up call. 

  

And here comes the month of June, the noisy chit-chats of upbeat stories of students, the daily grind of walking to and from classes, the usual tambay at “himantayon avenue” and just the feeling of being back to school. But this time in a more serious level-LAW SCHOOL. Then, my civil code professor threw a question with regards to why I wanted to become a lawyer.  Indeed, why? I responded to a question without any doubt that not only was this a choice but it was a dream. An opportunity to attach the letters A-T-T-Y to my name, to bring honor to my family, to provide assistance to those people who can’t afford to seek for legal services & to be deviant among the members of my family for in the first place we are a family of teachers, engineers & police but  never, not even one of  my siblings dared to choose the field of lawyering or even medicine.

 My first week at law school was so nerve-racking & I was a bit culture-shocked. Before enrolling myself to law school I believed my life then was slacker & had less reading to do. I was having the time of my life- a little bit of gigs, fun & the crazy stuffs. It was the classic case of the Peter-Pan-syndrome where I didn’t want to grow up just yet. But here in law-school, you need to be disciplined, patient, serious, to be more likely a NERD I think (haha..) and to be mature enough.

 

Law students have to do a lot of studying, reading, memorizing (verbatim) on articles & not a whole lot of partying or male-hunting (hihihi..). We tend to oblige ourselves to do those things for us to enhance our analysis & to increase the capacity of our memory. Sometimes, when there are oral recitations where most of us has the fear plastered in our faces, how we wished that we had electronic chips inserted on our brains so we could easily utter the right provisions or maybe wished that we can be able to summon a dead chief justice’s spirit and let them in to our bodies so we may think & act like them. But these are just stupid wishlists because the gritty truth is that here in law school – you need to eat stress..

& read a whole lot of books with volume upon volume regardless of how thick or costly it is. 

Law students also need to read fast & comprehend easily by clocking in a lot of extra hours from evening till dawn of reading, reading & reading. But mere reading does not only necessitate skimming a page or jumping mindlessly from article to article. Law students are milking each page of every case being digested and when prior to enrolling yourself at law school you have to be determined for there is no room for the faint-hearted.

    It’s tough being a law student, sometimes I feel like giving up and there are times when I begin to see the likeness between my life & Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” but come to think of it this is still my first year & there are still lots of things I need to learn. I have to be strong & do lots of adjustments. If before I would have enough time strolling around, goofing with my friends & checking my inbox for an inordinate amount of time. Now, all of those need to be minimized or maybe withdrawn. And I thought that if I had just paid attention on my senior’s warning it would have saved me from entering such a lawful life. But this is my dream & for me to test my limits I need to sacrifice even in the love department per se. After all, lawyering is not a trade nor a craft but a profession, a privilege & a channel to render public service as well as to secure justice for those who seek its aid.

This is the unforgiving reality of law school..

but after passing the bar, it is also very rewarding.

Happiness

Happiness is a feeling of joy and pleasure mingled in varying degree, it is a satisfaction of one’s deepest desires as what Mr. Webster emphasized.

People who are in grave turmoil and those who feel deprived and isolated from such pursuit to be happy need to know some of the things I do in order to live life with happiness. After all, life is all about survival and pain is a part of the journey we have to face in life. Thus, the search for happiness is needed.

Anyone could be unhappy, it took no courage or effort. But true achievement lay in struggling to be happy. We assume that happiness is a feeling that comes as a result of good things that just happens to us, things over which we have no control. They say, happiness is a serious problem.

But the opposite is true: HAPPINESS is largely under our own control. It is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be awaited. We have in our hands the decision,a choice to whether we continue on dwelling to such pain for too long or rather to retard that feeling and choose happiness even in the most simple details in life.

I know some people who have everything in life, the riches, fame and glamor but they are essentially unhappy and I was foolish enough to assume that nothing unhappy existed in those persons lives. I also know people who have suffered a great deal but generally remain happy. This is the irony life has to offer.

Because of this, I’ll share to you a secret that I’ve learned from experience. The simple truth about happiness is that it is a byproduct of something else. The more passion we want to have, it gives us the pursuit and be permeated with its purpose.. It challenges us.. the more happiness we are likely to experience. We need a spiritual faith or philosophy in life.

The philosophy that if you find optimism in every awful situation you are in, you will be blessed & blissed enough. This is largely all about how you decide to live your life. The secret is to be grateful. All happy people are grateful even if they are in the most problematic situation.


True that:

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional..”

.. and so I chose to be happy.

Just a thought: Life

    I could still keep in mind what my mom & dad told me during those times where everyone in the family weren’t that busy. They told me about certain stories of how mischievous & sweet I was when I was a still a little kid of which by the way I still am. Hahaha..They would tell me stories about how cheerful I was when I first had my voice lessons having my sisters as my teachers & my elder brothers as my bodyguards who are ready to kick asses to those who would make me cry. They would tell me how talkative I was when I goof around on my mother's classes & how I picked a fight or how I stick my tongue out of my mouth, or how I started to make funny faces to her students. Sometimes they would keep on teasing me about how red my cheeks were when they found the little-miss-naughty-me kissing a foreign little boy of my same age who was the son of our family friend. It was so funny & embarrassing. Geesh! I haven't really remembered all of it but if it was really true, dang! I wouldn't be able to grasp the thought of how active I was of stuffs like those kinds at a very young age. Hahaha! It makes my mind wonder where he could be right now. Anyways, his name was Ivan but sad enough because I really didn’t remember him that much, not even the kissing part though. LoL! I couldn’t even imagine what he looks like. For sure, he’d be handsome enough or else I wouldn’t have kissed him. Teehee!! Hmn.. did he ever remember what I did? (Yikes! How humiliating!). Or is he still in the Philippines or back to New York? Oh well, queries, queries, and queries. Life is an endless pile of questions. Life is a drama, comic, action -packed & a horror story. Those were just some of the creepy things I've had in my life. The kind of bizarre things that made my life worth living, smiling & worth valuing. It's startling how we idiotically giggle just about every little stupid thing we did and hilarious enough since I couldn't remember some of the best-funny recollections I’ve had. Those cute-embarrassing memories I had as a kid. And now that I am on my first year as a law student, though at times it’s tormenting to the point of thinking about suicide but I never attempted to do so. Life is way vital than just dredging it all up just because of one mistake. Think about your family, yourself & what else you are still capable of doing. They say life is a sexually transmitted disease which is downright bizarre. But I say life is a process of becoming. Most things break including hearts but whatever challenges we come across in life are not supposed to paralyze us, but on the other hand they are supposed to help us learn who we are. We are all ephemeral & we borrow the life we have from our almighty God. We have to live a life where we seek what makes us happy, a life so unselfish & a life strong enough not to be overtaken just by a mere twinge of problem. Indeed, Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep (Carl Sandburg) and in the process makes you feel good as you become stronger in by inch. And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years (Abraham Lincoln). It has been twenty years now since I first breathe, opened my eyes, cried & met the face of what people call..